Verso
by CatatonicDragon
Summary: verso-turn violently, turn often, twist, twirl, whirl, manipulate; They are rather strange circumstances, Tanuki decides, but what is life without a challenge? Even if said challenge is surviving in a world full of ninjas."


When I die, it is from a bullet through the head and at fourteen.

When I wake up, I am in an infant's body, covered in an array of questionable fluids that I would really rather _not _ponder, thank you very much. That's just gross.

It takes me a while to figure out the situation I am in. After all, being shot in the head and then pushed out of a vagina in what feels like a span of five minutes is disorientating. And also really weird.

But I do figure out what's going on, eventually. The tiny infant meat sack I'm in is lifted, wiped clean, and then deposited in a basket padded with blankets. Said basket is picked up, judging by the rocking motion. Unfortunately, I can see over the walls of the basket, but the world above me goes from a wooden roof to the night sky.

Well, not that I can really see anything besides a thick layer of mist above me. It swirls, obscuring the sky and only allowing the faintest glimpses of huge trees, bark twisted from their growth. The face of the person carrying me also remains unseen. I only see a porcelain mask that glows eerily in the mist, its painted smile stretching towards its eyes in an alarming way.

Oh.

_Oh. _

Well, fuck.

I feel a rather detached amount of alarm at the realization that I am currently being carried by an ANBU member, and am in the Naruto universe. And the swirling mist indicates that Mist Village is my current location. Everything fades into static for a little bit while I struggle to regain my bearings.

My name is Gabrielle. I am 14 years old. I have blonde hair and blue eyes, and I was killed, and then born just a little bit ago. I am in the Mist Village.

My high-pitched screech pierces the night air. Though they are tiny, my infant lungs manage to produce a sound akin to the wail of a goat on its deathbed.

It scares the ANBU member, who utters a loud curse. They stop moving, setting the basket I'm in down roughly. Their eerie mask peers down at me as they lean over the basket. The ghoulish mask and two fingers glowing green are the last thing I see before my world abruptly fades to black.

When I had awoken, I had been left in a run-down orphanage squished between two large weapons shops. The ANBU member had apparently knocked me out and then left me in the arms of the caretaker of the orphanage, whose name was Azumi. She was a middle-aged woman with soft features and a gentle countenance. She took well to me, considering the fact that I was technically fourteen years older than I looked.

Being so much older mentally than I physically was had been a bit difficult. For a while, I had been plagued with dreams of my old life, watching my siblings goof off and spending whole nights awake to talk with friends I had made online. But after about two years in the Naruto world, I had come to terms with my situation. I was no longer a teenage girl whose main problem was getting good grades. I was a girl in a world of ninja, and my problem now was training hard enough to get into the Academy.

In Mist, a village where its economy clearly had some issues, I knew being a civilian wouldn't cut it. Ninjas got _way _higher paychecks, and that was something I needed. At fifteen I would be kicked out of the orphanage, and having the paycheck of a ninja would enable me to move into my own apartment, instead of living on the cruel streets of Mist. Besides, being a shinobi meant that I wouldn't be defenseless, that I would be able to turn chakra into amazing jutsus, and be able to embed senbon coated in poison into a person's most vulnerable points. So, the shinobi path was the one I chose.

I started training right away, as soon as I was able to walk and hold objects firmly. Days at the orphanage were spent either helping the other kids or going out to the training grounds nearby. Nights were for sitting in bed and reading the books I managed to pick up about the ninja arts. I visited the two weapons shops on each side of the orphanage constantly, along with hiking through the early morning mist to make visits to the library near dawn most days. Becoming familiar with weapons that the Mist shinobi use was helpful, and every now and then the owners (one a gruff woman and the other a joyful man with a booming laugh) would grant me a random kunai or set of senbon they had lying around. The librarian was a disabled woman, her right leg cut off on a mission. She was more than happy to share her knowledge and books with me.

Going to the training grounds included me using all my knowledge from my previous life to work out each muscle in my body. I ran every day, going from one mile to two, until I could run five miles easily. Pushups and sit-ups were constant exercises, and then aerobics and strength work outs. I discovered with much joy that I was much more flexible than in my old life, although my fear of cracking my head open stopped me from attempting anything remotely resembling gymnastics. I worked on my aim with the weapons I got from the weapon shops' owners, and discovered my chakra with the help of the librarian. Training helped me build up my physical chakra, and meditating helped my spiritual chakra, until I had a decent pool of the stuff.

At eight, my rigorous training had granted me solid muscle, and the endurance of someone twice my age. I had been thoroughly impressed with this, but then I had enrolled in the Mist's Academy. Kids who were my physical age (at this point, I was mentally twenty-two) were ay my physical fitness level, but most of them grew up with ninjas, and already knew ninjutsu techniques, and could back flip their way up a building. I had only just figured out that my chakra affinity was water. Knowing that my exams would include killing them in five years scared the shit out of me. They were all innocent kids, and I tried to keep my distance as much as I could. I couldn't allow myself to become attached, since that would end up with me dead. Obviously, that was not an outcome I very much liked the sound of. So I stayed by myself, while I learned how to perform ninjutsu, how to channel chakra to my feet, how to kill.

Although I avoided interaction with children at the academy, the kids at the orphanage were downright adorable. I simply couldn't resist forming bonds with them, until I became revered as a guardian type figure. Someone messed with the little blue haired girl who slept in the bed next to me? Bet your ass that a bitch was gonna get punched in the throat sometime soon. This, of course, earned me a pretty fearsome reputation, not to toot my own horn. Having a default expression of someone who looked like they were utterly tired of everyone's bullshit and not being afraid to bite someone to protect a little girl seems to do that. I was simultaneously known as "Mama Tanuki" and "That Fucking Lunatic".

I couldn't be more satisfied.

Speaking of names, my name had been quite an issue in the beginning. Although I loved my name very much, Gabrielle just wouldn't fit in with the rest of the names of the Naruto universe. I had at first been called Ayame, but part of me refused to completely move on from my old life. I still had my appearance from before, the same body shape and coloring, but I just couldn't be Ayame. Couldn't move on completely. So, my name became Tanuki. It was what all of my online friends knew me as, was part of my tumblr URL. It earned me some very, _very _strange looks, and sometimes some jokes (that were often met with a violent strike to the smartass who made the joke. Living in Mist had made me a bit more brutal.), but it was something familiar, and I soon became known as Tanuki.

Being in the Naruto universe, you would expect for me to find many people that I would recognize. Funnily enough, I only recognized one person from the series. Said person was in the same orphanage, and happened to be my best friend. This person was Mei Terumi. After seeing her punch a kid's teeth out for making fun of one of the children at the orphanage, I hadn't hesitated to initiate friendly conversations. That had been when I was seven, and she was eight. Now I was thirteen (technically twenty-seven, although I still kind of felt fourteen, just a bit wiser) and she was fourteen, eagerly giving me a thumbs-up from the stands as I walked to the center of Mist's arena, where I would slaughter fourteen children in order to become a genin. I looked at Mei, nearly hidden in the huge sea of people, her wide smile and bright eyes, and prayed to god that my training wouldn't fail me now. I had beaten others before, killed animals to prove that I was not weak to the academy's teachers. I breathed in deeply and straightened my back, walking confidently to my corner of the arena where I would stay until the proctor motioned for my class to begin.

My hands strayed to the kunai and tanto the teachers had given us, the only weapons that would be used in this bloodbath. My stomach rolled uneasily, and I began to sweat. It would be hard, but I would win. I would graduate and become a shinobi.

_I would. _

The proctor threw down his hand, and the crowd roared as the battle began.


End file.
